It's not so much about "sticking to our roots" Tao, it's about the name's ability to instantly (InstantXly?) define that Darkcoin addresses the entire realm of ever increasing government and big business incursion into the financial transactions of everyone. Its name is an immediate differentiator to Bitcoin and sets it apart from virtually everything else. While many people are very worried about the name's almost total (in perception) connection to the world of nefarious human activity, that's one way of defining the word "dark" and doesn't mean it will always be seen this way. The name carries connotations that are both positive and negative.
I've voted to keep it as Darkcoin; I don't think it could have a better name that ruffles feathers so much and gives it such an edge. There just isn't another name that comes close to cutting through rhetoric and making it clear as to exactly what it achieves. So many businesses won't touch it, but many others will and as attitudes to the "I'm from the government. I'm here to help" assurance start to wane towards the realisation this is often a facade, there'll be greater widespread understanding as to what anonymity is really all about and the lights will start to come on in people's thinking.
Darkcoin; forever Dark!
I've voted to keep it as Darkcoin; I don't think it could have a better name that ruffles feathers so much and gives it such an edge. There just isn't another name that comes close to cutting through rhetoric and making it clear as to exactly what it achieves. So many businesses won't touch it, but many others will and as attitudes to the "I'm from the government. I'm here to help" assurance start to wane towards the realisation this is often a facade, there'll be greater widespread understanding as to what anonymity is really all about and the lights will start to come on in people's thinking.
Darkcoin; forever Dark!
Ruffles feathers, perhaps, but the average person struggling to understand bitcoin will be far less likely to want to adopt something named Darkcoin. By all means, I am 100% content with the name and leaving it as is... if everyone realizes any chance of mainstream adoption is off the table. Regulations aside (which will already be a hurdle due to the privacy-centric nature of the coin), there is far more perceived negativeness to the name as it stands. If it's agreed to stay the same, then wasting resources on mainstream adoption seems fruitless, and any large scale marketing firm should be able to further reiterate that fact. If the name stays, then market towards the neglected undergrounds markets--black market, gambling, and porn. The biggest problem I see right now with Darkcoin is the fact that it is trying to do too much with no clear direction. If you are pitching mainstream adoption, really, the name has to be changed. Mom and pop shops, grandmas, etc, just aren't going to understand it--even after the learning curve to understand crypto. If you are keeping it the same, then the push should be towards underground trade that is going to continue to happen regardless and gambling (large enough markets in their own right).
It's the stubbornness right now and the fanboyism in not seeing the forest through the trees to only look at the crypto market as the sole influence for branding.
I agree with you Oblox (and enjoy all your posts too). The "Darkcoin's all about anonymity, but wait, it also now does InstantX which is a game changer!" is confusing if we start pushing InstantX as the main feature to facilitate wide-spread adoption. You're 100% right about mainstream adoption being off the table with the name Darkcoin; it's just never going to get up. The mere mention of the "dark net" or "dark markets" is a complete and total turn off for the mainstream. People who occupy the world of nine to five, regular income, stock-standard finances and bank accounts/credit cards will have about as much interest in a thing called Darkcoin as they will with Silkroad; they're just not going to have anything to do with it. So Darkcoin will initially be addressing the darker side of human financial transaction activity. And while I'm not at all comfortable to be marketing it this way (and frankly each time I hear someone getting all excited about how the drugs, gambling and porn industries "will just love it" it makes me feel even less attracted to it) I think the natural uptake in these realms will bolster Darkcoin and give it a huge leg up. Then, if we keep pushing for clarity that Darkcoin is about privacy as a human right, eventually the concept that, just because it's used by people doing illegal things doesn't mean it's "bad" in the same way that the US dollar is used by people doing illegal things yet it's not considered bad, will start to dawn on people and there'll be less worry about it.
There's a big fight brewing over privacy and the big guns (like what we saw from the MasterCard exec talking down crypto in his Youtube video) are going to attempt to convince the public that cash is bad and only the big financial institutions have the legitimacy and appropriate tools. During this mindset war, Darkcoin (with it's outrageously in-your-face name that describes exactly what its about) is likely to become the poster-child of what/why financial privacy is so important and it will be attacked on every front as being "badder than bad". I think its name will (over the very long term) be an asset but we're going to go through hell first.
The alternative is to completely re-brand but I think that's actually far riskier and I can't see what that pathway genuinely entails that will result in it having any specific edge. InstantX maybe, but that's a hell of a big unknown i.e. we really don't know if it's going to be "a few seconds" or 20 to 30 seconds or potentially longer once it's deployed for POS applications in the field. If InstantX still requires 30 seconds or so to confirm that's way longer than current credit cards can provide and it won't be acceptable (think about a long line of customers at the checkout at Walmart; 30 seconds for each customer where they're probably currently getting around 5 seconds adds long delays; retailers won't accept it).
Good discussion (and yes, the "fanboy" element worries me too).
